Day 4: Gluten Free Day!

The alarm wakes me up this morning and I realize I am literally stuck to my sheets.  At some point in the wee hours of the morning my daughter snuck into my bed and attached herself to me, sort of leech-like or something.  But wow, is she ever a heat generator. Clearly I do not need to worry about how my children are fairing with the low night time temperatures.  So after tediously removing said sopping blankets, no point in a shower (sorry folks, I'm big on preserving water) I get dressed in my gym closes and sneak downstairs, hoping I don't wake up too many other sleeping children.  Sure they decide to sleep in today!!!  The morning I don't get to sleep in!  OF COURSE!  I decide I don't have enough time to wait around for my oatmeal to cook so I jam ingredients in my magic bullet (protein powder, oatmeal-raw,  frozen berries, liquid iron supplement and coconut water) and run out the door.  In case you are wondering, yes the bullet is crazy loud, so I took it to the basement to blend. 

My workout was rushed, I had 45 minutes to replicate monday's hour long session.  Since I did it on Thursday I knew it would be faster but this time I also added a 4 minute warm-up on the tread mill.

1 min at 3.5
1 min at 6.5
1 minute at 9.0
the last minute at 4.

It definitely gets the heart rate going, and moving with that momentum I powered through the workout, sure at some points with far less grace than I wished, but hey who really cares.  Hopefully my trainer can give me the names of the exercises and I'll post the workout, for a record and also to get some feedback, but a this point it would be silly for me to try to explain what I did.  Suffice to say I'm sweating (and swearing) by the end and don't look very girlie while doing it :) So now I run out of the gym, get home, tag Mark and he's off with the boys to his daddy and kid program while I take Annaliese to a birthday party. So birthday party, visit with a friend on our way home, bulk barn run (to pick up some gluten free supplies), stop at Starbucks to refuel on a decaf and free mini pastry (Annaliese picked the pink cake on a stick!  interesting idea isn't it?), then back home to clean, cook pizza and enjoy the pizza with some friends.

Since I've decided to challenge myself to try to go more gluten free I've decided to post the list of symptoms I could find for gluten intollerence.
 the specific symptoms of gluten intolerance and celiac disease?

• Weight loss or weight gain
• Nutritional deficiencies due to malabsorbtion e.g. low iron levels
• Gastro-intestinal problems (bloating, pain, gas, constipation, diarrhea)
• Fat in the stools (due to poor digestion)
• Aching joints
• Depression
• Eczema
• Head aches
• Exhaustion
• Irritability and behavioural changes
• Infertility, irregular menstrual cycle and miscarriage
• Cramps, tingling and numbness
• Slow infant and child growth
• Decline in dental health

So I have way too many of these symptoms, that is why I'm going to try this out and see what my body tries to tell me.  The good thing is, I already make most of the food I consume so it's not that challenging to sub out whole wheat flour for other gluten free variations.  Mark wants me to get a doctor's note so that we can get a tax write off, since he says gluten free stuff is way more expensive, but at bulk barn I really didn't notice a huge price difference in the variations of flours, I've already bought brown rice pasta, and I eat so many other grains that don't contain gluten that I'm not that worried.  Of course "keeping me honest"... I'll let you know if anything changes.

I pleasantly surprised Mark when I made gluten free brownies (I bought a small bag of the powdered mix at Bulk barn) and of course I beefed up the recipe by adding, walnuts, hemp hearts and chunks of 80% dark chocolate, oats and only halved the brownie mix.   I didn't put the amount of oil (actually the recipe card asked for butter), I used way less and used egg whites instead of a whole egg.  I also used almond milk instead of water.  And wow they were soo good.  Oven was 375F and I used my muffin tin and it made 12, they were rich and crispy and so full of flavour.  I ate 3 and so did Mark!

All this to say, if you want to start experimenting with healthy baking but you don't want to flop on your face and get Frisbee-like food , start by buying the mix and add to it, substitute and just see what happens.  Eventually you will find that you don't need the pre-mix crutch and you'll spread you wings and take flight in your own kitchen.  And remember I am not endorsing pre-mixes 7 day's of the week, by my 80/20 rule of clean eating, experimenting with processed foodstuffs is ok on the weekend!  All in the name of learning to intuitively cook/bake clean eats!